


Watching

by woodelf



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Poetry, Post-Avengers (2012), Sifki Month, Sifki Month 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23546857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodelf/pseuds/woodelf
Summary: Unseen, Sif watches Loki from outside of his cell.
Relationships: Frigga | Freyja & Loki & Odin & Thor (Marvel), Loki/Sif (Marvel)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 26





	Watching

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt for Sifki Month : Shut in/stuck together. This springs off of a fic idea that's still percolating in my brain, where Frigga asks Sif to visit Loki in his cell in an effort to get him to reveal what happened to him after he fell into the Void. Sif, cloaked by one of Frigga's spells, is watching Loki unseen while she debates what to do.

I watch you, unseen,  
And the snarling mask is gone  
Leaving only too-bruised eyes  
And too-sharp shadows  
In a face grown thin with deprivation.  
You eat too little, Frigga says.  
The glaring, unrelenting light does not suit you;  
You were made for the cool shadowed places  
In your mother’s garden  
With sunlight filtering through the leaves  
Or through the curtains in your bedroom  
When we lay entwined, in years past  
Or the dim, quiet recesses of the library  
Which you claimed as your own.  
You were made for starlight in your hair  
And the gentle glow of moonlight  
Reflecting in your eyes  
And turning your skin luminous,  
Not this harsh whiteness with nowhere to hide,  
For you, the most private of persons,  
And I wonder how you bear it.  
Thor told me your secret when we thought you gone  
But it seemed to matter little  
Where you were born  
When I knew the fierceness of the Queen’s love,  
When I could see the grief in her face like a raw wound  
It seemed to matter little  
When I could see the shadows in the King’s eye  
When he looked at the place where you always stood  
In the throne room  
Or sat at table, in the feast hall.  
It seemed to matter little  
When I knew that Thor would strike me down  
Where I stood  
Should I have suggested that you were not his brother.  
It mattered little because I could not think of you  
And see a monster under your skin.  
Only the boy with laughing eyes  
Who never questioned  
My right to train as a warrior  
And the gentle youth to whom I gave my first kiss,  
The smirking lover who captured my heart  
And the fierce warrior who guarded my back  
In battle, for centuries.  
It mattered little, when I was faced with your death  
And a world without you in it.  
I regretted that we had grown apart  
I regretted that I had not been there to say  
That you are many things,  
But not a monster, never that  
I regretted that I had not supported you  
When the weight of the kingdom was placed upon your shoulders  
When the very foundation of your world  
Was crumbling beneath your feet  
I can only imagine how you felt  
But I do not have to imagine  
How your family grieved for you  
For the adoring son and loyal brother  
For the prince and trickster both  
If you doubt anything, do not doubt their love  
Or that you could belong again  
If you so wished it.

But you have to tell us  
What happened when you fell  
You have to tell us  
Why your mother sees fear in your eyes  
When she presses you on the subject  
You have to tell us  
Why you cry out from nightmares  
When you finally succumb to sleep  
(You fight it, she says.)  
She is right in that it makes no sense  
For you to attack Midgard as you did  
As Thor told her –  
All violence, and bluster, designed to attract attention  
When your way was always one of stealth and subtlety.  
Tell us where you got an army  
And a weapon of power  
(Who gave them to you?)  
Would you tell me if I came into your cell with you?  
If I shook the truth from your lips?  
If I held you when you woke shaking with terror?  
If I kissed you and said I was sorry  
For uncaring words, and accusations?  
Even now, watching you, I see what Frigga sees --  
A sense of wrongness, and  
Puzzle pieces that we are missing  
You were not born a monster  
But I would know who tried to make you into one  
For I know you are no coward  
And if you fear someone out there  
Then I worry  
That Asgard should fear too.


End file.
